People

''What a treacherous thing to believe that a person is more than a person''

When I was 13 and didn't really have a personality, I used to take traits of the people I admired and made them mine—building myself with bits of other people, or at least that was what I thought I was doing.

The thing is, this interpretation of people is just a mirror, showing me what I am. People aren't just people to me—or to any of you, for that matter—because I see them through a sight imbued in my worldview and expectations, turning them into an idea. That may be why sometimes I think so highly of people—because I'm not thinking of people, just the glorified idea of them, built by my experiences with them, built by my perception.

Interpretation takes a turn here, because people are people, not ideas. Whereas and idea can be anything, people can't. People laugh, cry, eat and shit like I do. And that, as obvious as it is, changes everything. Because as quirky, funny, and inteligent a person may be, they could just as well be the opposite in any other situation, differentiating the real person from my idea of them.

How can I really know people when all I see in them are parts of me? How can I understand people when all I hear are just tiny bits of them filtred through my perception? My conclusion is that I can't. I can't know you because I can only see you through my eyes, only hear you through my ears, only think of you through my mind. I can't know you because I'm already me.